Illegal mining is causing a lot more deforestation than envisaged, Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) Mr. Rickford Vieira has said. He made the comment during a recent presentation on challenges facing the mining sector.
The GGMC Commissioner said that an additional problem was that the gold acquired through illegal mining was not sold through the normal channels, thereby robbing the country of a main source of revenue.
He said: “At the moment we don’t have any control. We need to see where they are, where they are going. When you are on the ground you can’t see those things.”
He said that as a result a main focus of the GGMC this year will be on the use of aerial surveillance, including satellite imagery to combat the illegal activity.
An increased resort to remote sensing via the Geospatial Information System will help the GGMC to monitor these activities in a near real time process.
Officers can then make visits to these “hot spots “with a greater degree of precision.
Vieira said that the GGMC has received support from the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force and will continue to rely on these two agencies to complement the air surveillance and geo-spatial information received.
He disclosed also that the GGMC will push for the revision of regulations related to the definition of boundaries of mining claims.
He said: “At the moment our laws allow people to locate claims in keeping with what they call a chain and compass survey. With this system the descriptions are so vague that whenever somebody finds gold they move their claims and put it there and so there are a lot of litigations against the GGMC.”
He said that GGMC will move to revise these regulations to ensure that people use Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates in locating the claims so that the problems related to the traditional way can be eliminated.
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